


big enough to hold your love

by bandwitch



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, mild descriptions of gore but I promise it's nothing explicit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-06
Updated: 2018-09-06
Packaged: 2019-06-30 13:20:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15752517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bandwitch/pseuds/bandwitch
Summary: When a simple mission goes horribly awry, Sakura and Ino are forced to confront their feelings under less-than-ideal circumstances.





	big enough to hold your love

Everything went south when they crossed the border into Ame.

It started as a simple supply-drop mission, better suited to a team of fresh-faced genin than the decidedly overqualified jōnin trio of Sakura, Ino, and Kiba. But Kakashi had recently received word of rogue pockets hiding in Ame’s southwestern corner who remained loyal to the Akatsuki, and he’d figured sending three recently-minted war heroes into what was still very much a volatile zone fell under the ‘better safe than sorry’ jurisdiction. Besides, Konoha was part of a coalition of Hidden Villages working towards rebuilding Ame’s infrastructure post-war, and Sakura was in the early stages of blueprinting a new, improved hospital system and complementary medic training program. The plan was to arrive early in the morning for the supply drop, meet briefly with the team working on the hospital, treat a few patients as a gesture of goodwill, and be on their way by nightfall.

That _was_ the plan. Up until about ten minutes ago.

“Well, this sure went to Hell in a handbasket,” panted Kiba, ducking his head to dodge a handful of flying shuriken. They were surrounded by what looked to be at least forty rogue ninja, maybe more. So far none had proven to be any a real threat; although they vastly outnumbered the three-man squad from Konoha, the best among them could barely have made chūnin, so the conflict was quickly shaping up to be less of a fight and more of an outright massacre. Ino had already taken a group down with a single effective use of her shinranshin no jutsu, and there was a telltale crater in the ground suggesting similar success on Sakura’s part.

“Yeah, this must be some kind of record,” Ino drawled. “Usually we don’t run into the middle of this shit until after we’ve stopped for something to eat.” She pouted. “Which sucks, ‘cause I’m fucking hungry.” Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Sakura run three nin straight through on the same spear. They let out identical shrieks and fell silent. Sakura mimed clapping the dirt from her hands.

“Shishkabob!” Kiba cheered.

“Damnit, forehead, you’re trying to show me up again.” Ino rolled her eyes.

“And if I am?” Sakura grinned, meeting Ino’s eyes and holding her gaze, steady and hot. “Whatcha gonna do about it?” She watched appreciatively as something darkened in Ino’s expression. They had been toeing the line lately, between the surety of the friendship they’d always shared and something different—something deeper, something Sakura felt heavy in her gut every time they brushed elbows. This certainly wasn’t the place for it, up to their knees in mud and dead Ame ninja, but somehow the threat made it all the more exciting, made Sakura feel that pull towards Ino a little stronger. And judging from the look in Ino’s eyes, the way she subtly licked her lips, she felt it too.

“Not to interrupt, ladies, but Akamaru says we’ve got incoming!”

Almost immediately following Kiba’s yell, the ground started to shake, cracks appearing and beginning to spread from a central point right behind Ino. Out of nowhere, a strong chakra signature uncloaked itself, and Sakura’s stomach turned at the feeling. It was pungent, vile, and the muscles in her back tensed uncomfortably as she felt the telltale slither up her spine. From Ino’s sharp inhale, she could sense it too. Whatever was down there was not like the other nins they’d defeated with ease. Whatever was down there was dangerous.

“Be on guard,” Kiba said, voicing what they were all thinking. “Something under there smells rotten.” Akamaru yelped his assent, moving in close to Kiba and preparing to pounce.

Unsure where the attack would come from other than somewhere below, both women fell back into defensive positions. Their eyes met. Electricity crackled, filling the air between them with a potential through which current flowed freely. It carried promises of protection, of solid, steadfast devotion, promises they would bring into the oncoming battle that would carry them through to the other side. Sakura’s heart sang with anticipation.

“Ino, it’s moving towards you!” Kiba yelled as the ground continued to quake. It felt as if the soil was shifting, stretching—and then, suddenly, the center point collapsed into itself with a gargantuan crash. The earth opened up its great maw with a primordial scream, and as Akamaru barked in shrill horror, an enormous, meaty arm reached out of the hole and grabbed Ino’s leg. Without warning, it yanked her down, fingers tearing into her skin like it was paper.

Kiba’s panicked yell of “Ino!” barely registered as anything more than a vague buzzing in Sakura’s ears as she immediately darted forward without thinking, without breathing. It took less than two seconds for her to reach the edge of the break, where Ino was clinging to a rocky outcropping by one hand. Blood dripped down her wrist. The nin in the hole had a solid hold on her ankle, where a strange orange glow emitted from his hands and seeped into Ino’s skin.

“Pretty cowardly of you to sneak up from under us like that,” Kiba scoffed. He’d caught up to her with a few quick strides and was peering into the crater, his face a mask of forced nonchalance. Sakura knew him well enough, had been on enough missions with him to read the thick undercurrent of unease in his words and the stiffness of his posture. He could tell something was off, too. Beside him, Akamaru snarled more viciously than she could ever remember hearing.

“Cowardly? I have no need for cowardice,” the man grinned. He was huge, nearly seven feet tall, and his entire body was thick with corded muscle. “Not when I could crush you with two fingers, puny boy.” Despite the strain he must have been under after burrowing through the ground, he showed no signs of stress other than the thin layer of sweat that shined on his face and biceps.

“Besides, I’ve got this bitch in my hands, and doesn’t the end justify the means?” The nasty grin on his face mocked all three of them, but Ino most of all. Sakura had never wanted anything more in her life than to punch it right off; immediately, she decided there was no time like the present.

With a primal roar, she leapt off the ledge and into the hole, fists clenched. Immediately she was face to face with the monstrous nin, whose expression reflected a mixture of disbelief and humor. Sakura knew the look well: many of her opponents wore it upon first meeting her. It was the look of someone who couldn’t understand why a five-foot-two, pink-haired girl was standing opposite to them on the battlefield with the confidence of a warrior. Generally speaking, the look lasted about three and a half seconds, until Sakura’s first punch made its impact, and they realized she carried death in her fists.

“What’s this now?" breathed the monster holding onto Ino. “Are you after this?” He shook Ino’s body in his hand to demonstrate. “It’s mine now.” He twisted her ankle, hard, and with a sickening crack, the bones shattered all at once. Ino let out a dreadful cry.

_I’m going to kill him._ The singular thought filled Sakura’s brain and pulsed into her body. Anger burned in her veins, spreading like wildfire. She planted her feet and reared back to land what was going to be the first of five thousand life-ending punches when a voice cried her name. She knew the voice better than she knew her own, trusted its owner with her life, so she halted.

Ino looked up at her, blinking blood out of her eyes. “Sakura, something’s not right,” she choked out. “I can’t move, I think he has me in some kind of jutsu—” She cried out suddenly as the nin below her snapped her other ankle with a flick of his wrist, and Sakura’s gaze was again drawn to the sickly orange chakra the enemy nin was pushing into Ino’s legs in a steady stream.

“Tsk, let’s not spoil the fun. A magician never reveals his secrets…what would I be if I let one of you little shits do it for me?” He shook Ino’s ankle particularly hard, as if to chastise her, and the broken bones jutting out from under the skin rattled sickeningly.

Sakura saw red. Immediately she flung herself at the towering body in front of her. He tried to dodge, but with Ino still grabbing onto the rock above her, he was unable to move out of the way quickly enough to miss the blow entirely. Sakura’s fist met his neck; the surprised hiss he made as the tendons snapped was barely a balm to her building rage.

“Sakura!” Kiba’s voice was tinged with urgency, but it barely registered through the fog of her anger. “Ino is right. Something’s wrong, Akamaru can sense it. He has her in some binding jutsu.” The nin smirked at her, grinning through what must have been an immense pain, and she had never hated anyone more than she hated him in that moment. Ino’s pained whimpers and the way her feet dangled uselessly from her legs only fueled the fire.

“Then he’s going to let her out of it,” Sakura spit out through clenched teeth. “ _Now_.” Her foot met his shin, kicking hard in an attempt to throw him off balance; it wasn’t powerful enough to upend him, but he wobbled, unsteady, for a moment, which was all the opening Sakura needed. She slid her leg down, hooking his ankle and yanking hard at the exact moment her hands encircled his wrist and tugged hard in opposite directions. His radius and ulna tore apart, jutting out of the sides of his forearm with a gush of blood and a violent rending of muscle.

He yowled and let go of Ino’s leg, although a thin orange trail of chakra still lingered, connecting her ankle to his fingers like a sticky spiderweb. Kiba was behind her in a flash, grabbing her shoulders and attempting to pull her back, but the tiny web of chakra held Ino’s body to the rogue’s with inestimable power.

“You little bitch!” he howled. “The fusion wasn’t complete yet—”

“And it never will be!” Sakura bellowed. Rage churned hot in her belly, clouding her vision and her judgment. She reared back with an animalistic roar, preparing herself for the final blow that would sever his neck and force him to drop Ino’s body so Sakura could encircle her in her arms, cradle her close, never let her go again—

“Too slow,” the nin hummed. It took a moment for his words to register, and then another moment for her to realize his unbroken arm was embedded in her stomach. With a squelch, he pushed it further inside, pushing past the muscle of her back and out the other side of her abdomen. Her body instinctively collapsed from the shock, trying to bend in half at the waist but forcibly held upright instead by the arm speared through her. The pain hit her like a bomb going off, exploding from her belly out through her chest, her legs, her neck—

“Sakura, _no_ ,” Ino wailed behind her. The madman was laughing even as he wrenched his arm out of Sakura’s body, wiping off the bits of gore that clung to his skin onto the fabric of his shirt. Something fell to her feet with a squelch. Dimly, the medic in her registered that it was most of her small intestine. Through the roaring in her ears, she heard Ino howling in the background, and she realized she was dying, which couldn’t be possible, not yet, because she had to get Ino out of here first, she had to get Ino home, she had to save—

Black curtained her vision, thinning her world first to a sliver of light and then to nothing.

* * *

Tsunade told her later that she was in surgery for twenty-seven hours. “They dropped you on my operating table practically severed in two, and I stitched you back up with chakra and a prayer,” she laughed hollowly over a glass of sake. “I thought you were a goner.”

Sakura knew Tsunade couldn’t say _don’t scare me like that again—_ because she could make no such promises, and her teacher had no right to ask her to. She couldn’t say _I don’t know what I would do if I lost you—_ because neither one of them were particularly fond of showy displays of affection—and besides, Tsunade was a ninja and had no choice but to carry on after loss.  She couldn’t say _don’t be so damn reckless—_ well, she could try, but Sakura had heard that one enough times from Tsunade during her time as Hokage, and it had never stopped her before.

But she could rest her hand on Sakura’s shoulder. She could meet her eyes, like an equal. And she could say, voice strong and clear, “I’m glad you’re alive.”

And that was enough.

* * *

Sakura awoke slowly to a world that was too bright, too clean, too sharp around the edges. Both of her arms were in casts, and her stomach seemed to consist more of medical gauze and stitches than it did flesh and bone. She felt something like a ragdoll whose sewing had come undone, stuffing shoved hastily back inside her body by the upset hands of a three year-old. Outside her door, the familiar hustle and bustle of the hospital was a comforting hum in her ears. She closed her eyes and breathed through the pain until it settled into a dull roar.

She was aware of Ino’s weight at her side, but she didn’t want Ino to realize she’d woken up yet. Sakura wasn’t sure if she was ready for the conversation that awaited them. It would be better to stay silent and deal with the consequences later. Unfortunately, this involved ignoring two lessons she’d learned long ago that were pivotal to having any relationship of consequence with Ino: Ino knows everything, and Ino gets what she wants.

“Stop pretending to be asleep.” Ino’s voice did not tremble. “Please,” she added as an afterthought, although there was no politeness in the word. Sakura sighed inwardly and peered out of one half-open eye to meet Ino’s gaze. Her eyes were swollen and red, nose snotty and hair unbrushed. Ino would never let anyone but Sakura see her like this. The realization grasped at Sakura’s heart and tugged hard.

“You stupid Forehead.” Ino’s voice was steady, but everything inside her was clearly scraped red and raw. “I thought you were going to die.” Her hand gripped Sakura’s, hard enough to bruise, but Sakura could barely feel it through all the painkillers. Even if she could, she was pretty sure it was making Ino feel better, so she continued to let her.

“I’m sorry,” Sakura bit out, her teeth clenching with the effort it took her ruined jaw to form words. Her tongue felt much too big to fit in her mouth. She tasted blood in the back of her throat. Always the most observant of them all, Ino trained her gaze on Sakura’s half-bandaged face and traced every one of her winces gently, almost reverently, with her eyes.

“Shut the _fuck up_ , little miss healing-from-multiple-back-to-back-surgeries, and let me have my say.” Ino’s other hand came to rest against Sakura’s collarbone, a soft press in contrast to the harsh bite of her words. For a few moments, they sat like that. Sakura waited for Ino to find her words, and Ino struggled to find them.

“It was a fucking C-rank, for Gods’ sakes,” she finally spit out. “You took on the Demon of the Hidden Mist as a genin, and now—those fucking Ame _shitstains_ waltz in and just—”

“Language, Pig.” Sakura tapped her fingers lightly onto Ino’s palm where it rested above her hand in what she hoped was a reassuring gesture. She was too exhausted to manage anything else, much like she was too exhausted to correct Ino and remind her that really, the rest of her team had done most of the heavy lifting against Zabuza.

“Are you really—you almost died and you have the nerve to chastise me for my fucking _language_?” Ino laughed; it sounded manic. A stray tear streaked down her cheek and she wiped at it viciously.

“It’s inappropriate,” Sakura murmured. “For the hospital. Your language.”

“I think it’s _highly_ appropriate!” Ino’s voice was getting shrill, which always happened concurrently with a spike in the intensity of her emotions. Sakura braced her ears for impact. “I am using my _fucking_ language as a _fucking_ rhetorical device to illustrate my _fucking_ point, which is that you. Almost. Died! What about that isn’t getting through your enormous forehead and into your thick skull?”

“Ino,” Sakura said quietly.

“His bloodline limit was a fucking poisonous paralytic jutsu! I could have figured my way out of it if I just had a minute, but you ran in there like a blind fool and got—you got yourself gutted!” 

Sakura didn’t say _better me than you_ , because she knew that wouldn’t exactly go over well at this point, but Ino seemed to know she was thinking it anyhow; her eyes immediately darkened, and her grip on Sakura’s wrist turned almost painful.

“And I can _see_ you sitting there thinking about sacrificing yourself for me, and I absolutely, positively, will not have it, not in a million years!”

Not for the first time in their friendship, Sakura wondered if Ino’s stint inside her head during the chūnin exams had left her with some sort of lingering residual tie to Sakura’s thoughts; perhaps she was able to access certain parts of her brain at will, because was there any way Ino knew her this well? (Of course there was; Ino was monstrously bright, egregiously quick-witted, and knew Sakura like she knew the secret meanings of flowers and the rulebook on interrogation jutsu. Ino didn’t need to see into Sakura’s head to know what she was thinking, not with the hold she had on Sakura’s heart.)

“And who do you think had to carry you back here, huh? Who got to do the _esteemed_ fucking job of holding your guts in one hand and slinging your—” Ino sucked in a deep breath, eyes clenched shut at some painful memory lost to Sakura—“your broken body over my back? I’ll give you one guess!”

“Ino,” Sakura said.

“He almost took you away from me,” Ino said brokenly.

“I know.” Sakura met her eyes and found the depths of feelings she knew had lain there, just beneath the surface, for months—years—but had never seen bubble up to the surface like now. “I’m sorry.”

“I killed him,” Ino said. “After I figured out how to neutralize his kekkei genkai with shintenshin, I severed his carotid artery.” Her eyes were far away. “My only regret is that I couldn’t take my time with him.”

Ino bared her teeth subconsciously, and Sakura was reminded of Ino’s long hours spent in T&I, studying under her father and then Morino Ibiki. She had joined two years ago, risen through the ranks at a rapid-fire pace, and was considered a shoe-in for head of the department once Ibiki retired. But she’d once confided in Sakura that her natural aptitude scared her more than anything else, made her wonder what kind of a person she was that she could do these things and then wash the blood from her hands, unbroken, unbowed.

Sakura had told her then that you do what you have to do to protect your precious people. Ino’s response was to laugh and accuse her of spending too much time with Kakashi-sensei and Naruto, but looking into her eyes now, Sakura thought Ino understood what she’d been saying perhaps even more than Sakura herself did. 

“Sakura,” she whispered. “I need you to know. I need you to know.”

“Know what, Ino?” Sakura had to grip Ino’s hand even more tightly to remind herself that Ino was right there; she felt so terribly far away in this moment, farther than Sakura could hope to reach.

“Please don’t scare me like that again.” It was a whispered plea, but Sakura was unsure to whom. Ino knew she couldn’t promise anything of the sort, not with the lives they lived. Maybe it was a plea to God, or perhaps to the corpse of the rogue whose blood she had spilled over Sakura’s limp body. It broke Sakura’s heart that she couldn’t grant it, but she’d rather have her own heart broken a thousand times over than let Yamanaka Ino slip through her fingers.

“Ino,” Sakura whispered. “My Ino.” With every last reserve of strength in her body, she shifted in the bed to open up a space next to her under the sheets. “Let me hold you.”

Ino looked up at her skeptically, wiping at her nose with a bandaged hand.

“Please.”

Ino snorted. It was delightfully unladylike. Sakura wanted to kiss her.

“I’m supposed to be the one comforting you,” Ino informed her through a face full of snot. “Just had a near-death experience and all that. Stubborn as ever.”

Gently, like Sakura was made of glass, Ino slid into the bed next to her. She tried to curl in on herself, making her body as small as possible, but Sakura tugged at her arms until they unfolded and placed Ino’s open palm over her heart.

“Still here,” Sakura murmured, pressing her face into Ino’s hair and inhaling deeply. Grime and the coppery tang of blood. She hadn’t made it home to shower yet. Sakura’s heart ached at the thought of Ino standing vigil outside the operating room, waiting for Tsunade to come out and tell her if she’d ever look into Sakura’s eyes again. If their positions had been reversed, Sakura thought she might have gone mad. She squeezed Ino’s hand tighter.

“Still here,” she repeated. “Still beating.”

Hot tears slid down Ino’s face and dripped onto Sakura’s shoulder. Sakura kissed Ino’s forehead, trying to comfort with touch because her words couldn’t be enough. She didn’t say she would do it again in a heartbeat, even though she was thinking it, because she knew it wasn’t what Ino needed to hear right now. Besides, Ino already knew. On some level, she’d always known.

"Will you stay with me tonight?" she hummed against Ino's forehead.

Ino rolled her eyes, though the gesture lacked its usual bite; she just looked tired. "Sakura, if you really think I'm leaving now, I'm going to ask Tsunade-sama to examine you for brain damage."

Sakura giggled hoarsely. Her stomach twisted at the way her first name slipped from Ino's lips, no suffix, no teasing nicknames, just her breathy "Sakura" sounding for all the world like it belonged in her mouth. They were going to be like this now, she knew; there would be no more barriers between them, no more hidden meanings or words left unsaid. It might not be simple or painless, but it would be honest, and it would be good. They would be good.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first piece for these two, and I'm so excited because I love them soooo much. I've shipped them for over 10 years, so I can't believe it's taken me this long to write for them outside of RP! As always, thanks to my darling Marisa for her delightful beta work and her incredible friendship.
> 
> I pretty much live for Naruto femslash, so if you wanna chat kunoichi lovin on other kunoichi, hit me up at [my tumblr account](http://beverlycrushers.tumblr.com) :0


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